JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Data from: Long-term differences in extinction risk among the seven forms of rarity

Harnik PG, Simpson C, Payne JL

Date Published: October 24, 2012

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.0mq69

Files in this package

Content in the Dryad
Digital Repository is offered "as is." By downloading files, you agree
to the Dryad Terms of Service.
To the extent possible under law, the authors have waived all copyright
and related or neighboring rights to this data.

Title

PaleoDB raw occurrence data downloaded 25-09-2010

Downloaded

106 times

Description

The data used for our study were downloaded from the Paleobiology Database (PaleoDB) on 25 September 2010. The download included all occurrences entered by the Marine Invertebrate Working Group, excluding vertebrates and genera listed in quotation marks or qualified as "?", "cf.", or "aff." were excluded from the subsequent analysis. The following data associated with each occurrence were also downloaded: paleolatitude, paleolongitude, paleoenvironment, primary lithology, and taxon abundance. Please see the PaleoDB (http://http://paleodb.org) for additional details regarding data fields.

AbstractRarity is widely used to predict the vulnerability of species to extinction. Species can be rare in markedly different ways, but the relative impacts of these different forms of rarity on extinction risk are poorly known and cannot be determined through observations of species that are not yet extinct. The fossil record provides a valuable archive with which we can directly determine which aspects of rarity lead to the greatest risk. Previous paleontological analyses confirm that rarity is associated with extinction risk, but the relative contributions of different types of rarity to extinction risk remain unknown because their impacts have never been examined simultaneously. Here, we analyze a global database of fossil marine animals spanning the past 500 million years, examining differential extinction with respect to multiple rarity types within each geological stage. We observe systematic differences in extinction risk over time among marine genera classified according to their rarity. Geographic range played a primary role in determining extinction, and habitat breadth a secondary role, whereas local abundance had little effect. These results suggest that current reductions in geographic range size will lead to pronounced increases in long-term extinction risk even if local populations are relatively large at present.